Midweek Faith Lift
September 10, 2025
The Power of Strength & Stability
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
Sept. 2, 2025
"When psychoanalyst Viktor Frankl was about 13 years old, a teacher of his declared that all of life is nothing but a process of material combustion. Frankl leapt up and asked, 'Sir, if this is so, what then can be the meaning of life?' Intensely preoccupied with this question, as a young therapist, he set up suicide prevention centers around Vienna, helping people on the verge of self-destruction find a way to find meaning in their lives. Then came World War II, and Frankl was thrown into a concentration camp. He realized that the career questions -'What do I want from life?' 'What can I do to make myself happy?' - are not the right questions. The real question is, 'What is life asking of me?'" - David Brooks, The Second Mountain, p. 91
"A window is a wall that refuses to be dense. It organizes itself around light. Its ultimate meaning comes from the Sun and not from the house. We would do well to remember that our meaning, too, comes from light." - Evan Hodkins, The School of Alchemy
"The place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you."
- Hafiz
And just a little humor from George Carlin:
"Just when I discovered the meaning of life, they changed it."
Affirmative Prayer for Today: Infinite Spirit within, empower me to see and recognize my spiritual strength in this now moment and in these current circumstances. I am filled with love and light to know my own strength in how I meet this moment and what it means to do that. Amen.
We are in a new month and in a new Power, our spiritual power of Strength for the month of September. As I sat with it this week, I realized it is truly the right and perfect time for us to explore and fully claim this power, the power of Strength. Rev. Linda Martella-Whitsett describes it this way on p. 147 of Divine Audacity. She writes: “Spiritual Strength is our capacity to stand undaunted in the midst of shifting circumstances, to act courageously and to stay the course.” How fitting as we navigate these challenging times that we find our spiritual strength to do all that she describes and more!
As we contemplate this reality, first let us remember that we have already been on a steady course to realize and activate 8 of our spiritual powers thus far. We began with Faith, then Understanding and Will, Imagination and Zeal, Power Love and Wisdom. Pause, breathe and know that all of that spiritual energy is what undergirds our power of Strength. We do not pull it out of thin air; our spiritual Strength comes from inner realization of all our spiritual powers thus far. In realizing the Power of Strength, we call upon all our previously activated powers to meet the moment, to meet the present challenge.
I love the Hafiz quote, “The place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you.” Really? Are you sure? Yes! How perfectly he describes where we are right now. We may not like it, we may not enjoy it, but we are here by Divine Appointment for sure. We are a bit like the young shepherd boy, David, facing the behemoth giant, Goliath, a powerful story about strength in the Hebrew Scriptures. Rev. Linda uses this story to illustrate the depth and breadth of the spiritual Power of Strength in us.
The Israelites were preparing for a battle with the Philistines and here comes the giant Goliath whose strength and massive presence was legendary. There is an extensive description in the book of Samuel which describes in great detail how huge and formidable the warrior Goliath was and how terrifying. His sword was the length of “a weaver’s beam” and his armor weighed “five thousand shekels of bronze” and on and on. It seemed like Goliath was invulnerable and that the Israelites were doomed for sure. He taunted the Israelites and they responded with fear. They did not have the military might to meet this warrior, Goliath and the Philistines and they were much afraid.
And then, here comes a young Jewish shepherd boy named David who offered himself to fight Goliath, one-on-one. His family was much dismayed, certain he would not survive. King Saul was also not a supporter of this strategy as David was not a trained soldier or physically strong enough to go up against Goliath. What King Saul failed to appreciate was the spiritual power of Strength that was alive and activated in David. He also had the power of Wisdom and the discernment to see and know that Goliath was indeed vulnerable and the intuition that gave him clarity that this was his to do.
And how did it turn out? Well, we know from the story that David, armed with a slingshot and 5 smooth stones was a dead aim and a crack shot. It only took one stone, perfectly aimed and launched to bring down the giant, hitting him squarely and “sinking into his forehead.” And David declares as he first meets Goliath:
1 Samuel 17:45-47
45 But David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, …..47 and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.” (NRSV-UE)
And then, with a slingshot, he brings down Goliath with only one stone. The power of Strength combined with Wisdom and spiritual Power bring down fear.
What powerful words and strength are evident in this story! David’s actions are in alignment with the Lord who does not operate by the sword and spear. David is suggesting a new consciousness, a new source of strength, that of spiritual strength. He is standing in his humanness with 5 stones, the number 5 metaphysically representing a level of human completion or presence. However, it is his humanness in concert with the One, the Power and Presence of Spirit that is represented in the one smooth stone that he uses to fell the giant.
The message for us is clear that when we stand in the energy and consciousness of Spirit, we are empowered in ways we have yet to truly realize. This is not an omnipotent God who conquered, but a humble shepherd boy who had the wisdom and strength to stand up to a bully with courage and tenacity. It is interesting to also note that while King Saul offered David his armor, it did not fit and David refused it. The spiritual Truth here is that Strength comes from within us, not from something outside of us.
In this story we see all aspects of the spiritual power of strength in the presence and actions of David. In calling on the Lord, David is calling “ on divine strength, the light of stability, courage and tenacity.” In our journey to discover our spiritual strength, we discover that we too are called to step up, to be the bearers of the light, the window in the walls that are between us. We stand in strength, in witness to the spiritual truth of Love, of God that is greater than we are, even when it appears to not be our experience right now. We are here to let in the light, to create openings for the light.
If we think of stability as “stand-ability” then we can see ourselves rooted in spiritual truth that supports our ability to stand in the face of all that is not love. I also believe that this is where our holy trinity is of critical importance. We have our human self, our David, our Divine self and our observer self which when in perfect accord, bring us strength and stability. You really need that 3-legged stool of the holy trinity in order to stand in the confidence and assurance of your spiritual power. It is only then that we have the true Spiritual stability of strength.
In the gospel of Matthew 6:22 we read:
22The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be filled with light.
What does this really mean for us? Well, so often in our human experience we are part of a triad, not a trinity. We are talking to someone else about what we think a third party should be doing. Usually, that third person is not present, right? When we gain the clarity of Wisdom and the power of strength, we are able to see things rightly, and the whole of us is filled with light! We have the capacity to stand in the energy of our holy trinity and act and speak with spiritual strength even when we might feel fear. We are able to say and do what is ours to do, like David in the story. And like Victor Frankl, we ask “what is life asking of me?” Responding to that question opens us to our power of Strength and the path of true freedom, the freedom from fear.
As Ernest Holmes writes on p. 30 of Lessons in Spiritual Mind Healing:
"In expressing more life we are expressing a greater degree of Infiniteness of the Spirit. We are more completely personifying It. This is the real purpose and meaning of existence. It is the nature of the Spirit to express through us, not in limitation, fear or want, but in freedom."
And finally in the words of Hafiz:
"We have come into this exquisite world to experience ever more deeply our divine courage, freedom, and light." – Hafiz
May it be so….
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb